No Rush For Multiplayer

[Hyfrydle]

I really miss the days when games were single player only without griefing and other people's involvement and part of me wishes AVWW was only going to be single player. This post has been triggered by the 0.522 beta notes stating that a world backup may be required due to possible problems caused by setting up multiplayer support.

Would it not be best for the game to get a polished fully functioning single player experience before trying to achieve the same in multiplayer. It's early days in the beta and I'm really enjoying watching the game grow and develop and feel single player is the way to go with multiplayer added later.

Maybe if multiplayer does need to be implemented sooner perhaps the Minecraft idea is the way to go with one version for singleplayer and another for multiplayer. Or maybe this would take too much development time.

I know this post is a little negative but I've really enjoyed playing AVWW since the first day of beta on my own and each patch has added some really nice changes making it a pleasure to come home from work and install the latest update. I'm just worried if time is spent on the multiplayer issues then the single player will suffer.

Well that's all for now look forward to the communities views on this.

[Nalgas]

Multiplayer was said to be already 80% implemented as of the alpha, just not usable because it wasn't fully up to date with the rest of the game.  The problem with putting it off for too long and especially with working on it completely separately from single player is that it makes it significantly harder to get it working when the time comes.  If everything is planned and designed with it in mind ahead of time as it has been here, it's much less disruptive.

Minecraft is actually a perfect example of how not to do it.  That was never intended to work the way it does now, and it was a nightmare to rewrite most of the game to accommodate it, which is a good part of what stalled development of everything else for so long.  That should very much so not be the case with AVWW.

[goodgimp]

Well, MP is the thing I'm looking forward to the most, so...

I guess I don't see the point of the post. A game has many features and functions, expecting devs to custom tailor there development schedule and resource allocation based on individual preference is just... weird, to me.

[keith.lamothe]

Already started on the MP refactor.  Found some pretty big messes that we've made over the past 6 months; nothing catastrophic but there's definitely a lot of work to do.  Things like the "fade out" and "fade in" mechanic recently added to chunk transitions actually cause big headaches for the MP structure (despite fitting ostensibly within it), and I'm sure that if we kept adding new stuff before getting MP working again that there'd just be more and more such messes.

In short: it's got to happen, and it's gotten to happen soon, so it's happening now

[Hyfrydle]

Oh well I guess multiplayer is in everything these days so that's how it is. Just hope the single player aspect stays strong and doesn't suffer because of it.

[Dizzard]

I'd have to agree I'm not too fussed about the multiplayer.

At least not yet, I'd like to see the single player get attention and then multiplayer afterwards.

[Gallant Dragon]

As far as I can tell, it looks like the single player elements will be just as important, if not more so than the multiplayer.  It's just that if they are ever going to implement multiplayer in a smooth and effective manner than they need to have a stable foundation and structure for it.

[Nalgas]

Er, guys?  It was pretty much always going to have multiplayer.  And AI War has both without either suffering for it, right?  Right.

[Kruztee]

I can identify with the OP totally. SP only gamer here as well.

[x4000]

I missed this post until now, somehow, but all I can say is that I'm sorry, but I don't agree with the OP.  For me, any game that has single-player should also have coop.  If you want my detailed, thoughts, here they are: http://christophermpark.blogspot.com/2009/05/case-for-co-op-games.html

It's something all our games have had day 1 public release until this one, and it's something that gets more painful to retrofit the longer we wait.  At any rate, by now most of the major surgery is already done, and multiplayer is working internally with one client connected to its own server, but we're working on optimizing it, etc.  A good game design for this game needs to also be able to take into account both SP and MP design considerations, and right now all the MP considerations are on-paper or theoretical, which is part of why we wanted to do it sooner than later.

Anyway, as you've seen with the last little while, despite our sinking a bunch of time into getting MP fully up and running and optimized, it's not like stuff grinds to a halt on SP content.  And it's not like it ever would -- as much as I believe in co-op content, I believe just as strongly that all the multiplayer content (player interaction aside) should be available in solo play.  So don't worry that you're going to get left behind!

[Hyfrydle]

My thoughts on this have now changed as each new patch is released the game is getting better and better. Also I would love to invite people to come and explore my current world which is starting to become a real place to getaway to and explore and sharing this will definately be fun.

The original post was due to multiplayer changes breaking single player in one of the patches and I just got a little concerned.

As long as I can still experience everything in single player then multiplayer is fine by me.

I apologise if I caused any upset and hope this post makes things a bit clearer.

[x4000]

No worries at all, and no upset caused.  And for the record I think that that one patch didn't even break SP at all, it was just we were worried that it might.  As with any huge internal changes, SP or MP related, we give special warning to back up files, etc.

Anyway, all good!

[zebramatt]

I was going to say: I'm not sure anyone would have even noticed if you hadn't mentioned it!

[x4000]

Yeah, and the time we don't mention it is the time it starts eating world files and people get really upset.   It's like bringing an umbrella with you so that it doesn't rain.

[zebramatt]

I like to think of them less as umbrellas and more as rain-warding sticks.